Gisel Guzman is a Ph.D. student in Geography at the School of Geographic Sciences and Urban Planning in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University and an environmental engineer with an M.Sc. in Water Resources Engineering from the National University of Colombia. Conceiving cities for people's well-being has always inspired her because how we live actively depends on weather and climate. For that reason, the cities' effects on climate, the microclimate in people, and the people-space relationship have been priority topics in her work.
Her research interest is transdisciplinary; therefore, her fields of interest include but are not limited to, urban climatology, biometeorology, environmental health, thermal physiology, extreme-weather events meteorology, building science, and remote sensing.
In her Ph.D., she addresses methodologic problems to research personal heat exposure in a changing climate and its health implications by studying the human energy balance interacting with heat exchanges in the built environment. With this work, she expects to contribute to different scientific fields that research heat in humans strengthening the physiological basis for thermal stress and climatology basis for environmental health studies. She is also a research assistant in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Award CMMI-2045663 CAREER: Coupling Climate and Human Health Models to Build Pathways to Extreme Heat Resilience.
From previous works, she acquired research experience in urban climatology using in situ and remote sensing (satellite and drone-based data) and in meteorology to address risk management problems associated with extreme weather events. Between 2016 and 2020, she worked as a research assistant and group coordinator in the Early Warning System of Medellín and the Aburrá Valley (SIATA). She completed her master's studies in 2019. Her dissertation was on the intra-urban climate variability of her hometown (Medellín) as a function of urban design, obtaining a meritorious distinction for her work.
Throughout her academic career she has obtained the following distinctions:
2021 The Interdisciplinary Enrichment Fellowship at Arizona State University (a merit-based award to support recruitment and professional development of outstanding incoming underrepresented master’s and doctoral students)
2019 Latinoamerican Award: Prêmio Maurício Roriz during the XV Encontro nacional de conforto no ambiente construído/XI Encontro Latinoamericano de Conforto no Ambiente Construído in João Pessoa- Brazil (an award recognizing the best conference proceedings).
2016-2018 Scholarship Minas Faculty: tuition waiver to graduate students at Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
2013-2016 Tuition waiver for outstanding grades during the semesters 2013-1, 2014-1, 2015-2, 2016-1 at Universidad Nacional de Colombia.